Systemic Strain and the Logic of Escalation
A figure once known as an anti-Navalny attack dog now presents himself as the head of the Russian opposition. Several outlets have circulated a leaked report this week claiming that Putin is in hiding, fearful of a coup. Observers abroad and many within Russia’s pro-war camp are beginning to register growing tensions in Putin’s world.
To Leave or Not to Leave: How Russian Technocrats Undermined Western Efforts to Isolate Russia
In 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, the West’s concerted policy was to isolate the Russian economy and to ensure that Western companies left the country. In practice, a legal exit and an economic exit have proven to be two different things.
Dagestan’s Divided House: Europe’s Ethnically Most Complex Place
Imagine a region where more than thirty distinct ethnic groups share the same administrative borders, speak fourteen mutually unintelligible languages, have coexisted for centuries and yet still struggle to define a common identity. This is Dagestan, a republic on Russia’s southern frontier with Azerbaijan and Georgia, and arguably the most ethnically complex territory in Europe.
The Kremlin’s Telegram Dilemma
The Kremlin has waged a sustained assault on internet freedoms in Russia throughout the full-scale war. In recent months, this effort has focused on Telegram, a widely used messaging platform.
Weapons of the Weak: What Today’s Russian Humor Reveals
Jokes, songs, rumors and small acts of sabotage do not directly threaten power, but they reinforce distrust of the “strong.” The prevalence of satiric and critical discourse is an indicator of social tension and therefore something that deserves close attention.
Non-Political-Yet-Political Theater Comes to Washington
A remarkable moment has dawned on Washington stages, as theater artists and their audiences struggle to blend resistance to a hostile federal administration with an artistic imagination that transcends the political. Two noteworthy productions – Inherit the Wind at Arena Stage, and The Crucible at the Washington National Opera – elevate political messages embedded in the original works by given them contemporary readings.
The Rise of Mr. Nobody
Pavel Talankin had a routine job filming school activities in a small town 1,600 kilometers east of Moscow. In 2022, he realized he was documenting something that was not routine at all, the spread of pro-war indoctrination among children. That was a story.
Reflections on Russia’s Nuclear Behavior
Given the failure to renew the 2010 New START Treaty limiting Russian and American nuclear weapons, now is an auspicious time to revisit Russia’s nuclear behavior.
Conditional Ownership: Russia’s Two Property Regimes
Large private holdings are being nationalized, re-privatized, or quietly transferred to actors deemed politically reliable. What once appeared as exceptional cases has become a pattern. Redistribution is becoming a structural feature of governance.
The Dangerous Legacy of Alexander Herzen
After Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine began four years ago, negative comments about the nineteenth-century writer and opposition figure Alexander Herzen intensified across Russian social media.
Cheburashka’s Second Coming
The story of Cheburashka, a seemingly innocuous cartoon and film character, has much to tell us about today’s Russia and its cultural landscape.
Trump Is Not Doing Russia Any Favors
As Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine nears its fourth anniversary, Russian President Vladimir Putin has rarely projected greater confidence of success or greater aggression toward civilian targets in Ukraine. President Donald Trump’s diplomatic team may entertain concessions to Moscow on Ukraine, but his overall foreign policy is unfolding in ways that militates against Russia’s long-term interests.
Chechnya: Laboratory of Authoritarian Identity Engineering
In the aftermath of two devastating wars, Chechnya’s leadership under Ramzan Kadyrov has pursued a deliberate campaign of constructing a “new Chechen identity.”
Civic Myth, Imperial Reality: Putin’s Political Nationalism
In Russia, now in the fourth year of its invasion of Ukraine, the public sense of “we” is shifting from an ethnic-religious basis to a civic and emotional one. Though many expected blood-and-soil nationalism to prevail, it has not. Being Russian is increasingly defined by citizenship, attachment to the state, and a declared feeling of Russianness.
Russia: The West’s Prodigal Sibling
In May 1905, when the Russian fleet was nearly destroyed by Japan’s navy at Tsushima, the decisive battle of the Russo-Japanese War, the global perception was unmistakable. For the first time since the Middle Ages, a non-European nation had defeated a European power in a major war. At the time, Russia was seen unambiguously as part of the West, a European power both in appearance and ambition.